Fans of the bestselling author/public radio legend will know that he is obsessed with picking up the litter along the roadsides near his West Sussex home. Now the local council has honored him in the most fitting way possible.

“No-one should be too surprised by the National Opera Review which promises to take a good look at Opera Australia, Opera Queensland, State Opera of South Australia and West Australian Opera. Governments want to know their money is well spent, and the conservatives have shown that they are not afraid to be radical in their approach to arts funding – and opera in particular.”

“A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It’s all about them. They have mastered the ‘Star Wars’ or ‘Star Trek’ universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.”

“Developers for the space, known as El Barrio’s Artspace PS 109 and located between Second and Third avenues, fielded 51,313 online applications via a city website by the July 14 deadline, officials said. That’s on top of more than 2,000 paper applications filed.”

“The Metropolitan Opera postponed a threatened lockout late on Thursday night, saying that it had done so at the request of a federal mediator who was brought in at the 11th hour to try to salvage its contract negotiations with the unions representing its orchestra and chorus.”

“[Copeland] will become the new face of Under Armour’s ‘I Will What I Want’ campaign, which focuses on the apparel giant’s women’s business. To appreciate Under Armour’s out-of-the-box thinking in tapping a ballerina to front its national ads, one has to grasp the complexity of Copeland’s story.”

“A Catholic publishing house” – Loyola Press, naturally – “is encouraging the people of the Internet to ‘find your inner Iggy’ and explore Ignatius’s vision of spirituality. In doing so, it appears that they have created the first-ever twee saint.”

“Martha Gilmer’s role has been large. In addition to working with the music directors, their ideas and complex personalities and overseeing all programming, she worked with and enlisted guest conductors and guest artists and created new ongoing programs to move the organization into the 21st century.”

The public art project, known as Nyctophilia, or love of the night, is set to be officially unveiled Wednesday night. In June, when the poles went up at the corner of Weston Rd. and Dennis Ave., it sparked a flurry of negative comments to the Star and other media outlets.

Philanthropist Wayne Reynolds, who was first wooed for the Corcoran’s board chairmanship and then rejected, “led a packed courtroom Wednesday on a rollicking and highly critical narrative account of his interactions with gallery leadership, at one point likening the Corcoran’s executive suite to ‘a goat rodeo,’ and asserting that he could do better, if given a chance.”

“With time running out before a lockout of its workers threatened for later this week, the Metropolitan Opera proposed on Wednesday that federal mediators be brought in at the 11th hour to facilitate negotiations with several of the company’s unions. But it was unclear if the unions would agree to a mediator, or if there was enough time left to forge a deal.” (includes video)

An experimental program at Manhattan’s New Victory Theater has been presenting to youngsters – for free – three weeks of wide-ranging modern dance programming, with the companies doing the same material they perform for adult audiences. The dancers seem to love it even more than the kids do.

The Times‘s app critic (yes, it has one) looks at an encyclopedic offering from the Poetry Foundation for discovering new poems; a Shakespeare app that includes all the sonnets and plays; two packages, for writing haiku and for longer verse; and an app devoted entirely to Eliot’s The Waste Land. (includes video)

New York City Ballet performs Ivesiana, a 1954 ballet by George Balanchine set to the music of Charles Ives. The soloists are Sara Leland and Francisco Moncion in “Central Park in the Dark,” Suki Schorer ... read more

There was a mimeo magazine called ppHOO69 *Intercontinental*1969. It was edited by Pradip Choudhuri and published by Subhas Ghose, with a front cover by Alejandro Jodorowsky and a back cover by Claude Pélieu. The poems ... read more

What happened to the genre of academic satire? In the Chronicle Review, Andrew Kay has some ideas; I’d like to offer a different take. Disclaimer: I’m no literary critic. But (a) I am an academic, ... read more

In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column, I review Escape to Margaritaville. Here’s an excerpt. * * * The jukebox musical, in which the back catalogue of a songwriter and/or pop star is repurposed as ... read more

The latest episode of Three on the Aisle, the bimonthly podcast in which Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I talk about theater in America, is now available on line for listening or downloading. In this ... read more

Howard Da Silva sings “Little Tin Box,” a number by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock from the score of Fiorello!. This performance, introduced by Tony Bennett, was seen on Standing Room Only: Showstoppers, originally telecast ... read more

Their recording histories encompass dozens of collaborations, but in their new albums two of the most prolific recording artists in modern music go it alone. Bill Frisell, Music Is (Okeh) Guitarist ... read more

Is Mieczysław Weinberg (1919-1996) a third Soviet composer to set beside Shostakovich and Prokofiev? An increasing number of musicians seem to think so, including the peerless Latvian-born violinist Gidon Kremer, himself a product of Soviet ... read more

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more ... read more

In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column, I discuss James Levine’s firing. Here’s an excerpt. * * * It was all true. That’s the conclusion of the Metropolitan Opera, which fired James Levine on Monday, ... read more

The Dave Brubeck Quartet plays “St. Louis Blues” on Belgian TV in 1964. Brubeck is the pianist, Paul Desmond the alto saxophonist, Eugene Wright the bassist, and Joe Morello the drummer: (This is the ... read more